The earliest version of this tongue twister was published in Peter Piper's Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation by John Harris (1756–1846) in London in 1813, which includes one name tongue-twister for each letter of the alphabet in the same style. However, the rhyme was apparently known at least a generation earlier.[2] Some authors have identified the subject of the rhyme as Pierre Poivre, an eighteenth‑century French horticulturalist and government administrator of Mauritius, who once investigated the Seychelles' potential for spice cultivation.[3][4]